


Five Short Tales About Four Johns and a Jack

by miriad



Category: Die Hard (Movies), Farscape, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-09
Updated: 2008-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-20 13:26:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miriad/pseuds/miriad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The name John means "God is merciful". What a load of crap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Short Tales About Four Johns and a Jack

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you SO MUCH to my lovely, dear, dear friend and beta als_wonderland. I could not have finished this without you. All extraneous commas are my fault and not hers- she did try and stop me. ;)

1.

John Winchester sees the world through a certain sort of double vision. Find the demon - kill everything else. The way he sees it he's killing lots of birds with one persistent stone. Saving people, hunting things, finding Mary's killer. It's a ruthless way to live and a part of him is sorry that he's dragging his boys with him. Another part of him is glad that they're learning what he never did.

Dean can take care of himself, Sammy's growing like a weed and on his way there too. Salt and burn, easy stuff for the moment but John knows that sooner or later, they'll have to cover the big ones. The situations where a shotgun and a can of gasoline won't cut it.

He's been researching, digging, asking questions and looking for answers. Hasn't found what he's looking for, not yet, but he will.

John Winchester has never been a quitter. He'll keep going until they have to pry the gun from his cold, dead hands. He's not sure what'll happen to him that will finally take him out. But he sure hopes that it doesn't happen before that yellow eyed bastard is dust on the wind. If it does, if he dies before he's finished, he knows that Dean will take care of things. Sammy and the mission. The family business. John's raised his boys right, raised them into fine men who know the score and are looking to settle it.

John was a dreamer but now he's a realist. He knows that he's been bitten by the bug, by the need to fight the good fight and keep going until something or someone makes him stop. He knows that this isn't a win or lose scenario- the game board is too big and there are way too many players for there to be one act or one person who can end it all, make it stop forever. But he knows that he has his part, his path and he's willing to walk it, just as long as he gets what he needs in the end.

Vengeance.

And if he saves a few people along the way, people like Mary who are innocent and good, well, it's an added bonus.

 

2.

John Sheppard has never been the stereotypical hero type guy. He doesn't pound his chest or throw his metaphorical weight around. He's never had the look of a physically imposing guy and he's kept out of any fight he didn't have to involve himself in. He does have the handsome, Maverick-flyboy-Tom-Cruise thing going for him, though - and boy has that caused issues.

But he's good at what he does and what he does is get the job done. It's that simple. He's willing to give up everything to save someone else and everyone who has ever served with him knows this as hard fact.

He'd give his life for you, risk everything to save you, even when odds are it's a suicide mission. There are a lot of people that know about Sheppard's black mark but those who know him- really know him- think it's a pile of horseshit.

Major Lorne and his marines would have to agree with that assessment. Under enemy fire, trapped behind enemy lines, running out of ammo at a considerably faster rate than anticipated, Lorne knows without a shadow of a doubt that Sheppard is coming. They just have to wait and hold the line. They're not alone- never have been, never will be, only situation where the Boss ain't coming is if he's dead. And if he's dead, they're screwed anyway.

So Lorne waits. And holds. And keeps the faith. Sheppard may not be the stereotype, but he is a hero, many times over. And the thing of it is, he doesn't even know it. Lorne figures that has to say something. He doesn't care what it says, exactly, just so long as Sheppard shows up with the cavalry.

And he will. So Lorne waits.

 

3.

All John McClane really wants is a beer and a hot shower. If he could, he'd have them both at the same time but he understands that there is a protocol of sorts for this sort of thing. No one likes watery beer so one before the other, procedure.

Except that he doesn't. Follow procedure. Not very often, at least, and that has caused issue with authority in the past. Hell, it's causing problems now. He's just destroyed a very expensive office building and killed shit-ton of people by himself. There's glass everywhere, Holly just punched the shit out of some reporter douche bag and John's feet really, really hurt.

He's lost a lot of blood, most of it smeared across the top floors of the Nakatomi Plaza.

He'd like to say that it's been a pretty shitty Christmas but that's tomorrow. It's sounds stupid to say that he's had a shitty Christmas Eve- who the fuck cares about Christmas Eve? Not John McClane. Although considering the major damage done to his body, he is going to care. For a long, long time.

Then he wakes up and it's almost twenty years later and his body still aches when it rains and he has less hair. And he still wants a goddamn beer and a hot shower. But the world is here. And that's OK.

 

4.

Aeryn Sun is never surprised that she's surprised, at least not any more. It's uncomfortable and new to her, the idea of not being able to expect or anticipate what will happen next. No amount of training could account for John, no matter how badly she wished it. All she knows is that John will do something that's outside of the realm of normal as she has had it defined for her entire life and he'll do it on his own schedule.

She's fine with that. Really, she is. Except for the times when the unusual and unexpected meet at the corner of crazy and dangerous. That's when she starts to wish that she could turn back time and make a few different choices. Turn left instead of right. Go up instead of down. Convince John that she isn't worth risking his life for. Keep him away from Scorpius' Gammack Base. Keep him out of that damn chair.

Unfortunately, without the wormhole technology that everyone seems to think John has, there isn't any chance of going back in time. Oh, the irony.

So, really, Aeryn Sun isn't all that comfortable with John being unpredictable and she should admit it to herself and act accordingly. Only, acting on that feeling of disease and discomfort would mean making decisions for John, taking the control from his hands and placing it in hers. Or Dargo's. Chiana's or Rygel's. And Aeryn knows, as if it's tattooed onto her skin, as if it runs in the blood that flows through her veins, that the last thing John Crichton needs is to lose control. He's lost so much in his life already.

And she's gained. Aeryn is not so blind to miss the fact that she has a life she never could have dreamed of even three cycles ago. She has friends, such as they are, and someone who believes in her. Her world has changed so much and she realizes that she has been rescued, in a sense. Taken out of the darkness that was her life with the Peacekeepers and given new life. The trade? Predictability for chaos. Is it worth it?

He walks past in her the corridor and reaches out with one large hand, fingers trailing softly across her arm. She reaches back towards him, still moving forward. Their fingertips brush gently and then he's gone, making his way towards whatever he has planned for his day. Ships passing, she thinks, her fingers still tingling from the contact, face warm from remembrances of other places those hands have touched.

Worth it?

Absolutely.

 

5.

Jack O'Neill (two "l"s, thank you very much) has a number of rules and personal codes that he's written for himself over the years. He tries to teach the men and women who serve under him the rules, even if it's a lead by example kind of thing as opposed to a spell it out with fine print. Occasionally he needs to beat a rule or two into the thick skull of a slow learner but, you know, it happens.

Daniel Jackson is not a slow learner. Which makes it even worse.

Jack can forgive the dumb ones, the ones who are a bit slow but eventually they catch a clue. Daniel caught the clue and wrote it down in his note pad but forgot that it was there when he saw the pretty pictures on the wall. He's far from stupid- in fact, outside of Carter, Daniel's the smartest person Jack has ever met. Just, the dumbest smart person he's ever met.

ANYWAY.

Jack doesn't deal with frustration very well. He is beginning to understand how all his commanding officers felt (or feel- he knows he drives Hammond a bit crazy, although it may not be as long of a trip as Jack once thought) when dealing with him. But Daniel... wow. New levels of nuts.

In the old world, before Stargates and aliens and touching down on different planets, Jack would have dealt with a guy like Daniel very brutally and without a whole lot of remorse. He wouldn't have killed him, that's a given- Jack doesn't work that way. But the old Jack would have used humiliation, sarcasm and just being an asshole to either get Daniel to play by the rules or to get rid of him.

But after Abydos, well, Jack owed him. And then it wasn't a matter of owing anyone anymore, Daniel was just part of the team. An annoying part at times, but TEAM.

So when Daniel forgets the rules, like STOP TALKING or DON'T TOUCH THAT, Jack can only sigh and try not to grind his teeth into a fine powder.

Because the thing is, Daniel is just Daniel. Big blue eyes and earnest expression and so full of innocence despite all that his life has thrown at him. Innocence with balls of steel, Jack has discovered. He's willing to do what he has to, to do the Right Thing. Even if the right thing isn't the same thing as the mission.

He's writing his own rules. Took Jack a while to figure that out. After a lot of beer and pizza and a cold night on the roof looking through the telescope at the universe that is suddenly a hell of a lot bigger, Jack gets it.

And after a few more beers, Jack starts making lists. He starts writing down his rules on one side of a piece of paper and what he figures are Daniel's rules on the other.

They're kind of the same, if you were to boil it down. Like burning-the-pot and setting the kitchen on fire boil it down but the same none the less.

Jack wants to respect that. Really, he does. He has to get over being so DAMN ANNOYED first.

But in the end, Jack has to admit it, even if it's only to himself. He wouldn't be here if it weren't for Daniel and the way he sees the world. Jack would be dead. He'd have eaten a bullet from his gun in his dead son's bedroom- the most likely scenario- or he'd have died buried in a pile of radioactive rubble on an alien planet. Back then, he wanted to die. His bullet or someone else's bomb, death was what he wanted.

And then he met Daniel, with his candy bars and huge glasses and chicken-man dance and suddenly, bullets weren't the best option anymore. Daniel was excited- about the mission, about the people, about saving the team. Daniel wanted to LIVE and he dragged Jack with him.

Maybe it's the beer and the cold, cold night air but Jack sees, maybe for the first time, that he hasn't been teaching Daniel the rules, Daniel's been teaching him.

Guess he finally caught the clue.


End file.
